By: Cade Wilson –
How lazy writing in The Walking Dead and shows like it ruins watchability
Have you ever found yourself watching your favorite show, only to see something so unbelievable that it took you out of the moment? Did it cause you to wonder if that something could ever occur, even in your show’s fictional setting? When a show breaks immersion and causes you to think that whatever just occurred is simply too ridiculous, it has broken what is called your “suspension of disbelief”. Breaking suspension of disbelief can occur in both TV and film, and is often caused by lazy writing.
The Walking Dead (TWD), the inspiration for this article, is a show that follows Rick Grimes, a small town sheriff, and his group of survivors, as they move from place to place, looking for respite during a zombie apocalypse.
The show has many fans, no doubt. It has fans who want it to keep going, fans who thought it should have ended a while ago, and even fans who don’t think it should’ve been adapted from comic books in the first place. The lazy writing in TWD has caused me to think that it has overstayed its welcome on television.
Many shows that have overstayed their welcome on television also appear to keep tricks up their sleeves in order to extend their run-time without having to do any hard work when it comes to writing. Even though there isn’t a specific length of time before a show begins to die, maybe the industry should develop some standards.
This can all depend on things like how creative the writers are and the tools they use to get themselves out of a corner, where it would seem as though any direction the story could take would result in some sort of plot hole forming. Plot holes can result in suspension of disbelief being broken. Superman for example, is a tough challenge for a writer, so much so that the established rules around Superman change; sometimes he can reverse time itself, others… not so much. So they killed him (of course, they brought him back for the Justice League movie, how could they not do so).
Another thing that affects the life of a story is whether or not it breaks its own, established rules. I’m not even talking about the laws of physics here, though not breaking those can help (a lot) with suspension of disbelief. No, I’m talking about the rules that a story establishes for itself. If in TWD, the walkers (or zombies) only infect through bites, why can they stab the walkers in the mouths, proceed to stab each other with the same knives and be fine? Things like those are what I’m looking for. Another example of this is also from TWD. In a scene where Carl (Rick’s son) has tripped and is crawling on the ground, and being grabbed at the ankle by a walker. The walker couldn’t hold on to Carl at all, yet later in the show, Dale is wandering around the farm and sees that a cow has been eaten, and the same walker from earlier ambushes him, and tears his chest open. That’s a feat of strength you wouldn’t expect from something that couldn’t even pull a small child back toward itself.
Another example of a plot hole in a movie can be found toward the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This story takes place in a fantasy world called Middle Earth. The story follows a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, a wizard named Gandalf, and a band of dwarves in their journey to reclaim the lost kingdom of Erebor from a dragon known as Smaug. In the scene where the plot hole takes forms, the group is ambushed by a pack of orcs, forcing them against the edge of a cliff. Gandalf catches a moth, says something to it, and sends it off. Not long after, a flock of eagles show up to save the day, taking out some of the orcs and flying Bilbo, Gandalf and the merry band of dwarves to safety. This is where one might ask the question, “Why didn’t they take the eagles all the way to Erebor?”
Ethan Grafton, a film student at UNL, brings up a prime example of a movie forming a plot hole that breaks suspension of disbelief. “I hate Suicide Squad so much [because] all the government folks cannot for the life of them figure out how to dismantle the GIANT SKY BEAM FROM OUTER SPACE WHICH THREATENS HUMANITY. So they, of course, send in the Suicide Squad as a… last resort, I guess? Anyway, they end up dismantling the magic sky beam with some COMPLETELY NORMAL EXPLOSIVES and not even a lot of them,” Grafton said, and then continued on to highlight the inconsistencies in logic that began to shine through the plot. “The government has to have already thought about blowing the thing to smithereens. But no, these guys get a couple sticks of dynamite, throw it all up on the death beam, and bang. Done. Movie over. What a terrible flick. Throw it in the recycling bin.” I do have to disagree with him a bit there because, while throwing it in the recycling bin is an environmentally friendly solution, it also implies that we’ll see something like it again, something I could do without.
Why does Suicide Squad break suspension of disbelief and The Hobbit doesn’t? The Hobbit didn’t have its entire plot destroyed by a glaring inconsistency in the writing like Suicide Squad. If the eagles in The Hobbit had taken the group to Erebor, there would’ve been more story to tell after that. If the government had decided to blow up the “GIANT SKY BEAM FROM OUTER SPACE WHICH THREATENS HUMANITY” as Grafton put it, then that would’ve been the end of the movie, so the entire plot was pointless.
Even the best of shows, and movies can have plot holes. They don’t always cause you to think the whole story is ridiculous. However, when they do, it begins to seem as though The people bringing you the show aren’t doing so in order to entertain you, but instead to turn a profit. When it’s a good show that it happens to, it hurts to watch. What was once enjoyable is now boring, or unwatchable. It’s just as bad when a movie concept is ruined by bad writing, because of how much potential it had to be entertaining. For movies, there isn’t much a writer can do in the way of plot holes, besides thinking of better ways the story could play out, or throwing in an explanation, even a simple one can help. For shows, you can do the same things as with movies, but sometimes it’s better just to end a show. I’m not talking about just cancelling the show, but instead ending it in a manner where the fans can be happy with it.
When shows go on for too long, it’s best to let them die, but with their dignity intact.